{"id":1815,"date":"2026-05-31T07:51:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T07:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1815"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:21:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:21:02","slug":"brunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1815","title":{"rendered":"Brunch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
She first had elaborate plans
to celebrate her thirteenth
involving two cities, 
three parties 
and a convoluted guest list.

We convinced her 
to focus her efforts on one event,
so she pivoted to 
\"a Ladies' Brunch.\"

We, her parents, exchanged eyes
over her head, 
as we thought about 
a long table of 
twelve and thirteen-year-olds
keeping themselves entertained and happy 
without a bouncy house 
or life-sized mouse 
or screaming music and a climbing wall 
or a death dojo of obstacles 
to serve as distraction.

But she was adamant, 
and so we relented.

And that morning, as her table filled
and guests politely commented on 
her table scape and the weather
and clasped their hands
and sat ram rod in their seats
something felt amiss.

A family member had a Mentos moment,
got up to excuse herself, and came back
with an armload of coloring books and crayons.
The relief on the girls' faces
as they were each given a choice 
between Bluey or Princess, 
Moana or Dogs.

While they simultaneously blushed, 
and said \"I don't care, really,\"
 \"no preference,\" and \"well, okay, thank you,\"
it was evident that one girl 
was thrilled to grab the tiaras, 
another gleaming with 
the chance to color in Bingo.

And so, while they ordered pink mocktails 
made with cherries and pineapples ,
and hibiscus and limonada
and behaved themselves 
like proper socialites in miniature,
they colored inside the lines, earnestly, gratefully.
Once their attention was diffused into art, 
the conversations began, 
like a match to dry wood, 
until the table was 
a healthy roar of cheer and connection
and the various girls, regardless of their 
newness, strangeness, became fast friends.

Later, once the group relocated
from the restaurant to the scoop shoppe, 
and had their fill of hot fudge 
and warm cookies 
and melty orbs of birthday cake ice cream,
they did handstands in the park under the hot sun
in their Sunday dresses and cartwheel shorts, 
balancing the act of growing up 
and staying young 
in a way that gives hope for the future.




<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cBrunch,\u201d an observation of a coming of age where it’s okay to keep childhood close. Written Sunday, May 31, poem 151 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Ladies Who Brunch,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,311,200,2,776],"tags":[189,79,1306,1301,1307,120,1303,932,1302,865,1305,1304,10,11,361,134,331,1299],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-generational","category-humor","category-poems","category-short-form-musings","tag-brunch","tag-children","tag-coloring-books","tag-coming-of-age","tag-crayons","tag-friendships","tag-growing-up","tag-ice-cream","tag-ladies","tag-may","tag-mocktails","tag-musings","tag-parenting","tag-relationships","tag-spring","tag-summer","tag-sunday","tag-teens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions\/1844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}